His dark eyes dart up to meet mine, finally. I smile at the surprise in them him stroke his cheek. “I was sitting there waiting for them to book me on a flight for tomorrow morning, feeling sick to my stomach because I was planning on giving you your present on Christmas Eve morning while we were alone.”
He eyebrows shoot up. “You drove home to give me a present?”
I nod. “It’s in my bag. Will you wait here while I get it?”
“Of course,” he says but his expression grows wary. With my nerves going wild, I walk over to the chair where I laid my purse. I pull out the gift I wrapped and hand it to him. He takes it but grabs my wrist and pulls me back into his lap.
“Before I open this, I want to say thank you.”
I grin, “You might want to open it before you start thanking me.”
His expression grows somber. “I know I was grumpy, but I’m so fucking happy you’re home, Kal.”
He leans forward and kisses me, and I know that there’s not a luckier person on this planet than me. “Open your present.” I urge him.
He tears the wrapping off with no ceremony and lifts the top off the small slim box. I hold my breath while he lifts the small stick out of the box and stares at it. And then back at me.
“Surprise,” I sing but my voice breaks with emotion as his eyes fill with tears.
His lips start to move, but no sound comes out.
“I wanted to wait for the blood test to come back from my doctor. She called me last night and the only reason I didn’t tell you then was because I thought I’d be home this morning, but then my—”
“But…you’re on the pill.”
“I stopped taking it.”
“When?”
“The day you came home early from work. I didn’t know until then how much it meant to you.”
“But…your job.”
I hold my hands out in front of me, side by side, palms up. “My job.” I move my left hand up a few inches. “Our family.” I drop my right hand, mimicking a scale that’s had a heavy weight placed on it. “No contest.”
His eyes drop to my stomach and he lays one of his big, beautiful, elegant hands over my still flat abdomen “You’re pregnant?”
“Yes. It’s early, but almost 9 weeks according to my hormone levels.” I cover his hand and squeeze until he looks up at me again. “Are you happy?”
“Holy shit, are you kidding? I’m so happy I’m afraid....” His words trail off and he looks at me, but his dark eyes are dazed and unfocused.
“Remi?” I snap my fingers in front of his face and he doesn’t blink. I climb off his lap and crouch in front of him. “Babe are you okay?”
“I’m fine. I’m fine. Born ready…” he pants and his eyes flutter. And then, with the kind of grace he shows in everything else, Remington Wilde, faints.
Chapter 7
Regan
Adventure of Lifetime
"Did you see the story about that reporter who pleasured himself while he was on a video call with his colleagues? He thought his camera was off."
My mother's question in lieu of a greeting is bewildering and a little awkward.
I clear my throat. "Yes, I saw the story."
"Isn't he married?"
Despite my best attempt to hold it in, a laugh breaks loose. “What's that got to do with him masturbating?”
"Regan, don't say that word to me. I’m your mother."
“Just because you've decided your vagina is relic never to be used again doesn't change the fact that you have one, mother."
She kisses her teeth. "You, this girl. You have no respect. Is this the influence Stone has had on you?”
“Oh no, I’ve been sex crazed since puberty,” I deadpan.
“Regan. If you're going to talk like you were raised in a gutter. I'm hanging up."
I stifle my laughter and clear my throat. “I’m sorry. It’s just that Stone is in the shower and I’m sitting here imagining what he’s doing and it’s got me so—” The click on the other end cuts me off and fall over on my bed, howling with laughter as I return the phone to the cradle by bed.
I dismissed Bianca’s concerns last night, but I wish she was bringing someone today, too. Not just to show my father she’s moved on, but because I wish she’d find someone to make her feel good. She’s a catch — beautiful, whip smart, loyal as hell and loaded.
Men fall all over themselves for her, and she has never showed even a passing interest in anyone. It’s such a shame…and a waste. And I can’t imagine that it’s healthy to go that long without sex.
Lord knows, the ten days Stone was gone felt like an eternity and even though he fucked me good and hard last night, if I didn’t have to go help Confidence out this morning, I’d be joining him in the shower.
I lean against the bathroom door and feast my eyes on my gorgeous man as he rinses off.
Long rivulets of water cascade over the range of muscles of his chest and torso, tracing the lines that cut into his hips and sifting through the dark thatch of hair that sits like a crown on his beautiful- even in repose- cock, and then course down his strong, hairy thighs.
I can tell he kept up his ambitious workouts while he was away, but nearly two weeks of eating whatever he could cook in the kitchen of his extended stay hotel has left him a little leaner.
I'm glad I cooked yesterday, because after the work he put in last night, he’s bound to be ravenous this morning.
He turns the water off and I walk over to put the towel he’s blindly reaching for into his hand.
He smiles in surprise when he turns around to see me standing there. “I thought you'd be dressed and gone.”
"I'm about to be on my way. My mother called.”
He’s drying his hair and stops to look at me with concern. “She’s changed her mind about today?”
“No. She wanted to talk about that reporter who got fired for jacking off during his virtual office call. She couldn’t understand why, if he’s married, he needs to jack off.”
He snorts a laugh. “That’s the last thing I expected you to say.”
I prop a hip on the vanity and watch him towel off. “I don't understand why his coworkers didn't say anything..." I muse.
Stone grins at me in the mirror and slings the towel around his hips. "They were enjoying the show.”
I scoff. “I doubt that, most women I know don't enjoy watching the men they work with beating one out.” Now, if their coworkers looked like Stone...I might believe it.
He laughs to himself and starts rubbing lotion into his chest
“What’s funny?” I sit on my hands to keep from taking over.
His smile turns nostalgic. “We did a lot of virtual calls with the satellite hospitals last week. Kofi’s son walked in and announced that he needed his dad to help him dig a turd out.”
“Oh my God. I can’t imagine. He must have about died.” I laugh when I picture the stoic anesthesiologist that works with him. "Wait, his son was there?”
“Yeah, he’s moved his whole family now.”
There's a wistfulness in Stone's voice that pricks my worry. “Are you sad it's over?”
“No, I'm happy to be home.”
That prick turns into a full-blown puncture “I know you are. But, that’s not what I asked. Are you sad that you're not going back?”
Our eyes meet in the mirror and the tension bracketing his moves me from my perch on the counter.
He once told me that he always feels safer when we are touching, that it grounds him to know that he’s got a hold on me. So, I wrap my arms around him from behind and lay my cheek on his warm, damp back.
“Tell me, baby.”
“They offered me a permanent position.”
He says it like he's announcing a diagnosis for a terminal illness.
“That's amazing. Oh, my God, I am so proud of you.”
I look up to find his eyes closed.
“What’s wrong? Don't you want the job?”
He sha
kes his head, “More than almost anything else.” His brow furrows like he’s in pain.
“Then what's the problem?”
"The one thing I want more is this life we've built here with you and the kids.”
My heart…oh how well loved it is by this man. I slide around so that I’m standing between him and the counter. I cup his dear, far too serious face in my hands.
“I do. But we can do that wherever we are. Here, Mexico, the moon...wherever we are, is home.”
Hope flares in his eyes before he shakes his head and clears it away. “You love this house, Regan.”
“Right now it's my favorite place on earth. But when you’re not here, it could be a cardboard box.””
“Come on,” he says dismissively and tries to pull his face from my hands. I hold on.
“I mean it.”
“What about your podcast?”
“All I need is a power source and an internet connection for that - I can record it anywhere. Say yes."
"Eva--"
"Will be thrilled.” I finish for him.
“And if she’s not?”
I quirk an eyebrow at him. “I know she’s mature for her age, but she’s only 12. And until she’d old enough, she has to do what her parents say.”
He winces and I want to cry at the way he loves my children. I stroke his back while I try to soothe his worry. “The hardest part of being a parent is saying no to the people you’d die to see happy. But you’ll get used to it.”
He side long gaze is full of skepticism. “Promise?”
I nod. “You've wanted this for so long. Say yes. We’ll figure the rest out. That’s what we do, right?”
“Right.”
I shake my head in wonder at him. “I can't believe you were going to turn this job down. You're insane.”
His eyes darken and he drops his head so our lips are almost touching. “No. goddess. I'm in love.”
Chapter 8
Tina
I Choose You
"I'm not sure about this Maxwell, I think my children have had enough surprises to last them a lifetime, maybe we should just wait to tell them when there’s not so much at stake."
I scowl at my reflection- my eyes are too wide, my smile to placating, and he’ll know.
I lie to the whole world, I lie to my children, but I’ve never been able to lie to myself and I’ve never been able to lie to Maxwell.
“Are you talking to yourself in the mirror?”
I snap my compact closed and stop myself from yelping in surprise. “Isn’t it obvious?”
He laughs, but his eyes stay on the road and I wish desperately I’d insisted on a driver. Every time I look into those rich brown eyes, I feel safe. And right now, I need that desperately.
“And pray tell, what are you saying to your reflection?”
“I’m practicing my speech.”
“Speech? I thought we were going to Christmas Eve lunch with your family.”
“We are.”
“And you’re giving a speech?”
“No. But I’m introducing you to my children.”
“And you’re practicing what to say?”
“They don’t really like surprises, given all the ones they’ve had in the last two years.”
“Well we’re here, so I hope you’re ready.”
I look up as we turn in to the driveway of the Riverses house and my stomach plummets to my toes. “How did we get here so fast?” I groan.
“Faustina Jordana Campbell Wilde., look at me”
I shake my head. I don’t know why I’m acting like this. I said yes to everything he asked yesterday because as soon as he made his wild proposition, I knew I’d been waiting my whole life for a moment like this.
So how is it that I feel wholly unprepared to meet it?
“Darling, look at me.” His voice is patient but insistent, now.
But I can’t look him in the eye and not come clean. “I haven't told them about you. Or us. At all, ” I confess.
He flinches. “I see,” he clips and turn to looks straight ahead again. A muscle in his jaw tightens. And I want to reach over to soothe it. But I know him well enough to know that nothing will soothe him but the absolute truth.
I met him at a party I attended at the American Embassy in London last year. I ordered a glass of white wine and was handed a Dark and Stormy instead. Annoyed, I looked at the bartender for the first time, and almost swallowed my tongue.
It wasn’t just that he was ridiculously handsome and grinning at me like a cat who’d just found a bowl of cream. There was something in his eyes that I hadn't seen in anyone else’s for a very long time –curiosity. The whole world thinks they know everything about me. And, for the most part, I tend to agree. After all, what could be left, after fifty something years of life, to discover?
But seeing his curiosity made me wonder if maybe there was something left, after all.
When I picked up my drink, I found his name and number scribbled on the napkin.
It was an impertinence; one I’d never countenanced before. I followed very strict rules of engagement when it came to picking my lovers. And strangers at bars was a major breach of protocol.
But as I turned to walk back to my table, I slipped the napkin into my clutch. As the night wore on, I could feel his eyes on me, and I found myself preening under his gaze. And every time I looked at him, there wasn’t anything– his bright, easy smile, his large elegant hands, that supple full mouth, the expanse of smooth dark brown skin and those eyes - that didn’t make me wonder, what if?
So, I got back to my hotel room and texted him my particulars and waited for him to join me. I had my rules ready to lay out and my checkbook ready to pay for his discretion. It turns out I wasn’t ready for Max, at all.
His daring didn't end with mixing drinks I hadn’t ordered. He also ignored my very rule first rule and kissed me.
I’d slapped him and then, my lips burning for more, dragged his mouth back to mine and took it. That night was an opus to new pleasures. He flipped me around in bed, pounded me into the mattress, wrapped his hand around my throat and slapped my backside like he was in charge. And for the first time in more than thirty years, I fell asleep with a man's heavy thigh slung across mine.
When the sun came up, instead of leaving like I expected, he ordered breakfast, not from the hotel, but from a café around the corner.
He climbed into bed with butter drenched slices of white toast that barely contained the grilled sausages and eggs stuffed between them. It was the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted. While we wolfed down our food, we talked.
He confessed that he’d been a server assigned to a table across the room from where I’d been seated. Then, he saw me and asked his friend behind the bar to trade places with him It was ridiculous and romantic and so charming, that I found myself, for the first time in my entire life, with butterflies in my stomach.
He was an actor, been working in off West End production for twenty years while waiting for his big break. Working events was just one of the things he did to pay the bills.
He didn’t have any clue who I was, beyond that he’d known I was Jamaican as soon as he saw me. He was born and raised in London, but his parents had come over on The Windrush and settled in a community of Jamaicans in Brixton. He joked that he was trained to spot his kin from fifty paces.
It was nice to be with a man who shares my culture, knew my body, and didn’t know any of my baggage,
I missed my flight the next day, and the next one, too. And it was only when Tyson threatened to come look for me, that I burst my bubble and told him I had to go. I gave him my business card, told him to Google me and if he still wanted to see me, to call.
I didn’t expect to hear from him again.
And for a week after I left, I didn’t.
My longing for him was uncomfortable. But the pangs of nostalgia for companionship that I hadn’t realized I wanted, terrified me.
But he finall
y called. And two weeks later, I was back in London. We spent the weekend in bed, cooking, and having what he called drink ups with his motley crew of friends. But the highlight of my weekend was getting to watch him perform on stage.
He was born to be an entertainer. Not only wis he an incredible actor, he has an amazing singing voice. I knew it was just a matter of time before the right person saw him. I tried to convince him to let me make some introductions, but Max’s pride runs as deep as his talent.
It would turn out though, that he didn't need my help after all. Two months later, he caught the eye of an agent who saw the play and his star has taken off.
Three months ago, he was cast as Aaron Burr in Drury Lane’s production of Hamilton. And two weeks ago, he signed a contract to be the face of Oswald Boateng's Spring/ Summer line.
Thus far, he’s been understanding about my need for privacy. Lucas Wilde maybe be back from the dead, and that expose Remi's wife wrote made sure the whole world knew it - but I'm still Tina Wilde and my private life has remained that way. I don’t know how to be open about things like this. But for him, I’m willing to try.
I breach the heavy silence tentatively at first. “My love…”
His head snaps in my direction and his eyes are blazing with hurt. “Are you embarrassed because I’m an actor?”
I put a hand on his arm and shake my head, vigorously. “No, I'm so proud of you—”
"Is it my age?” he snaps, impatiently.
I lean away in dismay. “No, of course not and you know it.”
“Then what is it? Because yesterday, you agreed to move across an ocean to live with me. And now you’re telling me that your family doesn’t even know I exist.”
"I-- I don't know why. At first, it was just that I wasn't sure where things were going. And then, when I was, I didn't know how to explain…to them.”
“They’re your children, what do you need to explain?”
I straighten my posture and defend my corner. “For better or worse, I’ve been the only predictable part their lives. Even when I didn’t behave as they wished, they always knew what to expect. I'm their mother, they need me.”
The Rivals Page 108